The latest generation cellular radio standard known as LTE (Long Term Evolution) has been designed to provide high data rate capacity and good spectral efficiency in terms of bits per second per Hz. This serves the needs of smartphones, tablet and laptop computers that offer high data capacity using applications such as video streaming. M2M (Machine to Machine) applications of cellular radio in many cases require only a modest amount of data capacity. In many cases communication is short and intermittent and the “mobile” M2M device may not move, or may have limited mobility and low speed. This is a significantly different use case from the uses that drove the LTE specification and which currently drive the chip designs for LTE.
M2M is set for very significant growth in the next few years. The total number of M2M connected devices may exceed the current numbers of phones, smartphones and other data communication devices. It is currently popular in the M2M modems market to use the older GSM/GPRS networks that have lower data rates, relative simplicity and lower cost. Unfortunately, this cannot be a long term solution as smartphones are migrating to the new 3G and LTE technologies. It is expected that the service providers will not want to maintain the older base stations. Also, with an ongoing shortage of available bandwidth for new services the service providers may want to migrate their spectrum allocations from GSM/GPRS to the newer systems that have higher capacity in a given bandwidth. This means that eventually GSM/GPRS will no longer be supported.
The 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project) standards committees have recognized the need for LTE to support very large numbers of M2M UEs (User Equipment) and have identified objectives for modifications to the existing LTE standards designed to support very large numbers of M2M UEs. A particular requirement of proposed changes to the existing standards is to ensure ongoing compatibility with existing devices and to minimize the impact of M2M traffic on the high data rate and low latency requirements of current and future users.
The standards groups have identified specific features and requirements for facilitating coexistence of large numbers of M2M UEs with each other and with other classes of UEs on the LTE system. There is also an objective to make it possible to have simpler and lower cost modems for M2M UEs that may not take advantage of advanced LTE features. For example LTE offers MIMO for higher capacity and more reliable communication. M2M UEs may be cost reduced by not using this feature, which requires multiple radios operating simultaneously.
Some ideas on the subject of M2M specialization within the LTE standard are captured in the draft specification entitled “3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; Study on provision of low-cost MTC UEs based on LTE; (Release 11) 3GPP TR 36.888,” 3rd Generation Partnership Project, www.3gpp.org, referred to herein as TR 36.888.
One strategy is to reduce the bandwidth of communication in the downlink (base station to UP) from 20 MHz down to as little as 1.4 MHz. This serves to reduce the cost of the components needed in the UE receiver and may be used to improve signal to noise and interference ratio of the received signal due to the narrower required bandwidth, TR 36.888 describes using a dedicated 1.4 MHz block of frequencies in the current 20 MHz band, possibly in the center of the 20 MHz.
Device coverage is an ongoing concern for wireless devices, including M2M devices and LTE network devices. Coverage may, for example, be adversely impacted by M2M specialization initiatives.
Therefore there is a need for a method, apparatus and system for radio resource allocation that is not subject to one or more limitations of the prior art.
This background information is provided for the purpose of making known information believed by the applicant to be of possible relevance to the present technology. No admission is necessarily intended, nor should be construed, that any of the preceding information constitutes prior art against the present technology.